Politicians wrong to accept free tickets

I would like to answer the question, "Should state employees accept free tickets to various fundraisers?" ("Lawmakers consider easing gift ban," Star-Advertiser, Feb. 3).

Of course not. If a state worker is interested in the good works of an organization, wouldn’t he buy a ticket, rather than freeload, just because he might have some influence?

The organizations are already in need of funds or they wouldn’t be holding the fundraiser in the first place.

Why would politicians want to burden them further by having them absorb the cost of his free meal? Have they no shame?

Pete Barrett
Kaneohe

More buses would get cars off freeway

People on Oahu need to realize that we cannot sustain the enormous number of single-occupant cars on our freeways any longer.

Our HOV lanes have little effect in reducing their numbers when 80 percent of them are still on our freeways.

Therefore, we need to convert the HOV lanes into "bus only" lanes during rush hours only and add many more express buses to transport the greatest number of our workforce and students directly to their destinations quickly. Surely that would remove a large number of cars from our freeways.

Ray Horita
Palolo Valley

Social Security’s fate is key political issue

Derrick DePledge’s excellent article on where the candidates stand on Social Security and Medicare homed in on two of the most critical issues of the 2012 congressional race ("Senate candidates in favor of keeping safety net," Star-Advertiser, Jan. 29).

Hawaii’s residents, both working and retired, are counting on Social Security and Medicare to provide them with the foundation of income and health care they need in retirement. With widespread loss of retirement savings and rising health care costs, these earned benefits are more important than ever.

People of all ages deserve to know all the options candidates are putting on the table to ensure the long-term strength of both programs. AARP will be listening carefully to what the candidates say about the future of Social Security and Medicare.

If you’ve contributed to Social Security and Medicare throughout your working life, you’ve earned a say in the future of these programs.

Barbara Kim Stanton
State director, AARP Hawaii

It’s GOP policies that favor the rich

One of your readers misunderstood your Jan. 26 political cartoon depicting the Republican Party as the party of the rich ("Republicans among 99%, too," Star-Advertiser, Letters, Jan. 28).

The cartoon does not suggest that all Republicans are rich, only that GOP policies favor the top 1 percent.

Republicans suggest that you help the haves, with tax policies that heavily favor them, and the benefits will trickle down to the rest of us. But we all know they haven’t, as the income gap between the very wealthy and the rest of the population widens.

Meg McGowan
Makiki

Reviewer missed point about pidgin

While everyone is entitled to his or her artistic opinion, I feel that John Berger’s criticism of "Saturday Night at the Pahala Theater" for using "gutter pidgin" crossed a line ("Brutalities beat sense out of ‘Pahala’," Star-Advertiser, Feb. 1).

Pidgin is a layered language steeped in a history unique to Hawaii. Hawaii is a place where many peoples of many different cultures learned to communicate with each other; pidgin is a testament to our basic will to connect.

Merciless bullying and ethnic slurs may come with the territory, but they are also part of our truth. I saw the play the same night as Berger and sat next to a woman my grandma’s age. Though I am generations younger, we traded glances of painful and joyous recognition throughout the entire play. The "gutter pidgin" may not be music to everyone’s ears, but that does not mean it should not be voiced.

Mie Omori
Aiea

‘Descendants’ was not insult to Hawaii

Michael Haas and I must have seen different movies ("‘Descendants’ insults Hawaii," Star-Advertiser, Letters, Feb. 1).

"The Descendants" I saw showed some wealthy haoles spending all their time in bars and the one "good" haole feeling bad he could hardly speak pidgin and deciding to keep the land unspoiled for all the people, including Native Hawaiians.

Jim Beaman
Honolulu

Legislature must end pension spiking

The results of the audits conducted by city auditors regarding "pension spiking" revealed the weaknesses of a structurally flawed pension system ("Get rid of ‘spiking’ to boost pensions," Star-Advertiser, Our View, Jan. 17).

These weaknesses opened the door for abusive practices; therefore, immediate corrective actions to prevent the recurrence of such practices are needed.

The editorial proposes meaningful corrective measures and should be considered in the overall reform of the pension system. The editorial further noted that state legislators were informed last year about this problem, but no action was taken.

Time is of the essence and further inaction is no longer an option.

The Legislature needs to tackle this critical problem because failure to do so will further erode public confidence in the ability of elected officials to protect the interests of the unsuspecting taxpayers, who will ultimately shoulder the financial burden.

Rod B. Catiggay
Mililani